Not Cranking Out the Same Old Thing – Is That Good?
After some quite excellent fantasy novels, Lois McMaster Bujold goes for (mostly) romance: “But with this one, she’s just gone the Lifetime Channel route.”
It’s Been Done
Is the “thug life” Grand Theft Auto-style now officially overdone? The Dubious Quality blog ponders Saint’s Row, a solid game that feels stale: “For me, though, there was a moment when this genre went from exhilarating to depressing.”
Valve Turns It Up Another Notch
Portal is a thinkin’ man’s first person shooter coming out from Valve, the folks behind Half-Life 2. Talking about HL2, Episode 1 has exceedingly clever in-game commentary that is reviewed and excerpted at Waxy.org.
Ultimate Timewaster?
If you play Civilization IV for three months, your next novel will probably be late — it happened to Iain M. Banks.
Hip-Hop Videogame
Is there really such a thing as a hip-hop videogame? Watch this convincing video to judge for yourself. A neat mix of arcade culture and hip-hop. (Keith Schofield also made a pretty awesome pi-related video).
Cultural Appropriation
Naomi Novik makes a stand: “I would rather take my characters to China and Istanbul and Africa and make mistakes and get corrected for them than confine myself to the safe Western European sandbox and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.” Her next Temeraire book is set in Africa, […]
The Cultural Gutter 